Soapylove Technique Post – 3 Color Fade

Rainbows and hearts… I can’t seem to get enough! One of my favorite looks lately is graduated color. Several years ago I taught at Otion’s Soap Weekend Intensive and was thrilled to attend a class by Paula of PJ Soaps (she’ll be teaching again this summer!). She showed how to make her beautiful moon soap (click here for tutorial), where she tilts the mold to get a lovely fade between the moon and midnight sky.

I have used this several times with a single tilted color, but realized if you use one on each side and then fill the center, that you can get a 3 color fade!

Prop your mold up on one side or corner. I used the Soapylove Striped Heart Mold. Next, melt and color a small amount of clear soap using non-bleeding red or coral mica. Spray your mold with alcohol, then pour a small amount of soap into one side, allowing it to only cover 1/3 of your mold surface.

It’s okay if your color doesn’t line up perfectly with the stripes. Allow to harden. Now turn around your mold so the opposite side is propped up. Melt and pour some blue soap into the opposite side, again only covering 1/3 of the mold face. Allow to harden.

Move your mold to be flat on the table. Color your third batch of soap yellow, spray mold with alcohol, and pour in soap so it fills the center area and covers a bit of each side color. Allow to harden. Spray with alcohol and top off with fragranced white soap. Voila!

Here’s a tip: color your soap with a light hand – if your colors are too dark then the background color won’t show through. When I do this project again, I’ll use a little less blue so the green tone will be more noticeable.

I’m not sure scientifically why the alcohol works, but it makes the soap layers bond together. Otherwise they may split apart later. Regarding how long to wait between layers, I let the first layer harden to the touch so the next layer won’t go through it. With the alcohol and a hardened first layer, you shouldn’t have any trouble with the layers bonding. Have fun!

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